8 ms·

My wife, when we were dating, bought me a Unisaw, one of the so-called dangerous saws. (She's also the woman who would say "I'm going out to get some milk, do

My wife, when we were dating, bought me a Unisaw, one of the so-called dangerous saws. (She's also the woman who would say "I'm going out to get some milk, do you need more clamps? Woodworker joke, sorry :) I have no intention of getting a sawstop saw. Why? Because my shop is full of dangerous tools. My 1930's drillpress ripped some of my hair out, my 1940's metal lathe can take your arm off, my bandsaw is way more dangerous than a table saw, don't get me started about my shaper, etc. Tablesaws, treated with respect, are very safe. But why not have an even safer tablesaw? Because I don't want to get complacent around one tool and have that feeling linger when I go use the next tool. They are all dangerous and all need to be treated with respect. Unless there is a way to make them all safe (there isn't), it doesn't make sense to me to have one safe one.

abakker 9y ago
Yeah, I'm with you to some extent. My mills, lathes, etc. are all very dangerous when treated wrong (Anything with a reasonable amount of horsepower is). Routers still freak me out since there is virtually no chance of reattaching things hit with a router. "A fine spray on the wall" is about all that's left. However, I'll also say that de-risking tools is a good idea. If you want to avoid complacency, then avoid it. If you can't take the vigilance you have around a lathe or a shaper and apply it to a tablesaw, just because the tablesaw is safe, I'd say you should probably reconsider your safety practices. There is a difference between good process and complete paranoia. At present, I have a standard delta saw, because it's what I have. It is "dangerous" and also kind of lousy. Because of the way the trunion mounts the blade carriage, it is not possible to adjust the blade to 45° without a few thousandth of pinch. I know my next saw will be a saw stop. They are safer, yes, but they are also incredibly nice saws. Compared to the powermatic I used to have, they are even better. When I move next, my Delta won't be coming with me, and I'll be ordering a saw stop.
- octothorp3 9y ago
  Aside from safety, what do you see as nicer about the sawstop? I love my Powermatic 66, they can pry it from my cold, dead hands :)
  - abakker 9y ago
    I like the switch, the fence, and the surface finish of the table quite a bit. Small ergonomic changes that seem nice. I used to have a powermatic 66 and loved it too. Given the choice of buying a new saw, though, I wouldn't buy the powermatic just because of the safety. Regarding cold, dead hands, is that before or after amputation by tablesaw? /s
baumandm 9y ago
Isn't this like saying you're not going to wear a seatbelt, because driving is still unsafe and you don't want to get complacent? I get what you're saying, but I would want to utilize as many safety precautions as possible, no matter what I'm doing.
- dpcx 9y ago
  Sort of, but not really. The reason you wear a seatbelt (for the most part) is because of things that are outside of your control: other drivers. In the case of woodworking, there are no other woodworkers that are going to do something stupid. And yes, I know that you also wear a seatbelt to remove potential injury from only you driving (think if you lose control, etc). You do the same in woodworking; you use clamps to prevent things from moving, you use push blocks to keep your hands from the blade, etc.
  - proactivesvcs 9y ago
    The article lists someone at the safety hearing who's amputations were the result of something out of his control. Your statements against the seatbelt analogy would suggest that we should all be using this safety mechanism because, for the most part, there are things outside of our control that can seriously injure.
    - dpcx 9y ago
      Sure. There will always be things out of our control in woodworking. Just like seatbelts won't save you in all circumstances. And there are still some people that drive without wearing seatbelts. It really comes down to personal preference (even though driving without a seatbelt on is illegal in many states and countries).
      - analog31 9y ago
        Indeed, and there are cases where I want to be protected from my own inattention, when the stakes are high enough.
cptskippy 9y ago
I find the complacency argument to be flat. The Sawstop technology doesn't prevent injury, you still get nicked by the blade, it just dramatically reduces the severity of injury incurred. Additionally when the mechanism trips the break and blade are spend and must be replaced. So the motivation to be safe around the saw isn't negated, it's just driven by different factors. Instead of motivation coming from the fear of losing a part of your hand, it's coming from fear of getting nicked AND having to replace expensive parts of your saw AND the time loss from having to stop working. Having a case and screen protector on your phone don't magically make it impervious and you don't suddenly starting handling it recklessly. Having seat belts and airbags in your car doesn't suddenly make you open to ramming your car into that asshole driving like a jerk in front of you. So why would no longer fearing losing your hand if you screw up make you more open to touching the spinning blade on your saw?
- mikeash 9y ago
  Furthermore, making it into a monetary loss might actually help people be more careful. Time and again I see people respond much better to "that will be expensive to fix if you break it" than to "that will maim or kill you." My flying club's annual safety meeting always puts heavy emphasis on the time and money cost of breaking our equipment for this reason. It seems to work well.
  - khuey 9y ago
    Everybody has an experience making an expensive mistake that they can relate to. (Living) people don't generally have experiences dying that they can relate to.
- neves 9y ago
  This is a really important point not made in the article: > I find the complacency argument to be flat. The Sawstop technology doesn't prevent injury, you still get nicked by the blade, it just dramatically reduces the severity of injury incurred. Additionally when the mechanism trips the break and blade are spend and must be replaced.
- luckydude 9y ago
jsharf 9y ago
I don't care how good the sawstop technology is. I still am super nervous around a table saw. I think for most people the fear is still there.
hmahncke 9y ago
name checks out.
MattGrommes 9y ago
For me, the safety stuff was a bonus to the fact that the Sawstop is a really great tablesaw. It was a huge upgrade in power, accuracy, and just fit-and-finish over my older less-safe saw.
Asooka 9y ago
Can't you just wear heavy gloves?
- Freak_NL 9y ago
  While gloves are useful in some cases (e.g., moving splintery and damaged lumber), with woodworking they actually significantly increase the risk of injury. You need the finesse and control of your hands when handling materials and tools, because gloves have a tendency to get caught in rotating machinery (e.g., drill press) and the decreased accuracy means you will be making mistakes in your movements. For this reason manufacturers tend to warn against the use of gloves in the user manual (while strongly recommending goggles, respirator, and ear protection).
- asteli 9y ago
  not sure if this is meant facetiously, but one tenet of shop safety is that you don't wear gloves when using tools that could snag and wrap your hand around them. drill presses, grinders, table saws.
  - abakker 9y ago
    yep. Effectively no woodworking tools can be safely used with gloves. Gloves are fine for material handling, but not operating tools. Don't google image search for "power tool glove accident"
- sjs382 9y ago
  Absolutely not. Never wear gloves when operating spinning tools. If you're morbidly curious, do a Google image search for "degloving". [NSFW: Gore]
anthonybsd 9y ago
You sound exactly like my uncle who is opposed to all modern car safety measures (seatbelts, ABS breaks, lane departure, blind spot radar, etc.) on the grounds that he doesn't want to get complacent while driving.
- luckydude 9y ago
  Nah, I like all that stuff. It all helps make driving safer. The sawstop is sort of like making left hand turns safer but nothing else. That's weird to me, all the other stuff is still dangerous but this one thing is safer. That doesn't seem to be a win to me. Maybe it is to you, for me, I think it would make me less careful in the cases where I don't have protection.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
deelowe 9y ago
This is a weak argument. A better one is that the saw stop doesn't work for conductive materials including wet or pressure treated wood. For this reason they provide a bypass which turns the stop off. You can imagine how this plays out in a production environment where it's accidentally tripped a few times (hint: workers learn quickly about the bypass).
Rantenki 9y ago
>>But why not have an even safer tablesaw? Because I don't want to get complacent around one tool and have that feeling linger when I go use the next tool. They are all dangerous and all need to be treated with respect. Unless there is a way to make them all safe (there isn't), it doesn't make sense to me to have one safe one. This argument is very irresponsible. Disclosure: I am a happy saw-stop owner who also has a large collection of POTENTIALLY very dangerous tools (gas-welding, milling machines, routers both CNC and otherwise, metal forming, etc). First, every tool that is safer reduces your total risk. Saying that unless all tools are safe, none are, is nonsense. Second, I know somebody that got caught in a drill press, and I can say from experience that you are very lucky that you only lost some hair. I find it odd that you argue against safety measures in the same paragraph where you note how you took a risk that could literally have lobotomized you. Finally, safety measures aren't only about you. Does your wife ever use your tools? Is she OK with those risks? Do you have kids (I know a dude locally who got his hand into a planer when he was a _young_ child. He's surprisingly dextrous after being amputated around the first knuckle on every finger on his right hand). Not everybody understands the risks like you do, and it's hard for them to make an informed decisions when they learn to use those tools without some kind of industry guidance.
- luckydude 9y ago
  You have your point of view, I have mine. My wife and kids don't get to use my shop without me there, it's got way too many places to go bad. Irresponsible? Really? That seems like a crappy thing to say. How was it irresponsible?
oliwarner 9y ago
Curious you consider your bandsaw more dangerous. There's a lot less momentum, only one vector for injury and you generally have a lot more control over your stock. My table saw can fire a 2×4 across a room. So I don't agree with your assessment but your kit is obviously different to mine. I don't disagree with your wider point about respect, but even seasoned pros make genuine mistakes. A lapse in concentration or material behaving abnormally. That's all it takes and you've lost a finger. It would be great to see similar things implemented in other tools but for the moment, what's wrong with making sure new models are safer by default? I mentioned airbags in another comment and I think it's a good comparison. Why would you NOT want this? And yes, why isn't somebody doing the exact same thing in bandsaws and routers? The same premise would work with little adaptation.
- luckydude 9y ago
  I sometimes freehand stuff through my minimax bandsaw. Sometimes that's the only way to get the curve I want. I'm not very good at it, the master of that stuff is Sam Maloof, he's light years ahead of me. The thing that made freehanding remotely possible was getting a carbide tipped blade. The normal blades have set to each tooth, the carbide tipped blade has no set, the tips are slightly wider than the blade. What that does is make the blade way less "grabby". I tried freehanding with the old blades and it grabbed stuff out of my hands like crazy, just (short) matter of time before something would go wrong there. The carbide tip blade has almost zero unpredictable grab. All this probably makes me sound better than I am. I'm an ok woodworker. Some examples (from ~20 years ago) are here: http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/wood/ http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/wood/ - the bench is a pretty decent chunk of work. Other than the section over by the vice the top is flat and square to about 1/1000th of an inch. Hand flattened with planes. The "sounds better" point that I'm trying to make is about the whole freehand thing. I'm not Sam Maloof good, not remotely close. I just need to freehand once in a while and the minimax plus the carbide tipped blade made that possible.

abakker 9y ago

Yeah, I'm with you to some extent. My mills, lathes, etc. are all very dangerous when treated wrong (Anything with a reasonable amount of horsepower is). Routers still freak me out since there is virtually no chance of reattaching things hit with a router. "A fine spray on the wall" is about all that's left. However, I'll also say that de-risking tools is a good idea. If you want to avoid complacency, then avoid it. If you can't take the vigilance you have around a lathe or a shaper and apply it to a tablesaw, just because the tablesaw is safe, I'd say you should probably reconsider your safety practices. There is a difference between good process and complete paranoia. At present, I have a standard delta saw, because it's what I have. It is "dangerous" and also kind of lousy. Because of the way the trunion mounts the blade carriage, it is not possible to adjust the blade to 45° without a few thousandth of pinch. I know my next saw will be a saw stop. They are safer, yes, but they are also incredibly nice saws. Compared to the powermatic I used to have, they are even better. When I move next, my Delta won't be coming with me, and I'll be ordering a saw stop.

octothorp3 9y ago
Aside from safety, what do you see as nicer about the sawstop? I love my Powermatic 66, they can pry it from my cold, dead hands :)
- abakker 9y ago
  I like the switch, the fence, and the surface finish of the table quite a bit. Small ergonomic changes that seem nice. I used to have a powermatic 66 and loved it too. Given the choice of buying a new saw, though, I wouldn't buy the powermatic just because of the safety. Regarding cold, dead hands, is that before or after amputation by tablesaw? /s

baumandm 9y ago

Isn't this like saying you're not going to wear a seatbelt, because driving is still unsafe and you don't want to get complacent? I get what you're saying, but I would want to utilize as many safety precautions as possible, no matter what I'm doing.

dpcx 9y ago
Sort of, but not really. The reason you wear a seatbelt (for the most part) is because of things that are outside of your control: other drivers. In the case of woodworking, there are no other woodworkers that are going to do something stupid. And yes, I know that you also wear a seatbelt to remove potential injury from only you driving (think if you lose control, etc). You do the same in woodworking; you use clamps to prevent things from moving, you use push blocks to keep your hands from the blade, etc.
- proactivesvcs 9y ago
  The article lists someone at the safety hearing who's amputations were the result of something out of his control. Your statements against the seatbelt analogy would suggest that we should all be using this safety mechanism because, for the most part, there are things outside of our control that can seriously injure.
  - dpcx 9y ago
    Sure. There will always be things out of our control in woodworking. Just like seatbelts won't save you in all circumstances. And there are still some people that drive without wearing seatbelts. It really comes down to personal preference (even though driving without a seatbelt on is illegal in many states and countries).
    - analog31 9y ago
      Indeed, and there are cases where I want to be protected from my own inattention, when the stakes are high enough.

cptskippy 9y ago

I find the complacency argument to be flat. The Sawstop technology doesn't prevent injury, you still get nicked by the blade, it just dramatically reduces the severity of injury incurred. Additionally when the mechanism trips the break and blade are spend and must be replaced. So the motivation to be safe around the saw isn't negated, it's just driven by different factors. Instead of motivation coming from the fear of losing a part of your hand, it's coming from fear of getting nicked AND having to replace expensive parts of your saw AND the time loss from having to stop working. Having a case and screen protector on your phone don't magically make it impervious and you don't suddenly starting handling it recklessly. Having seat belts and airbags in your car doesn't suddenly make you open to ramming your car into that asshole driving like a jerk in front of you. So why would no longer fearing losing your hand if you screw up make you more open to touching the spinning blade on your saw?

mikeash 9y ago
Furthermore, making it into a monetary loss might actually help people be more careful. Time and again I see people respond much better to "that will be expensive to fix if you break it" than to "that will maim or kill you." My flying club's annual safety meeting always puts heavy emphasis on the time and money cost of breaking our equipment for this reason. It seems to work well.
- khuey 9y ago
  Everybody has an experience making an expensive mistake that they can relate to. (Living) people don't generally have experiences dying that they can relate to.
neves 9y ago
This is a really important point not made in the article: > I find the complacency argument to be flat. The Sawstop technology doesn't prevent injury, you still get nicked by the blade, it just dramatically reduces the severity of injury incurred. Additionally when the mechanism trips the break and blade are spend and must be replaced.
luckydude 9y ago

jsharf 9y ago

I don't care how good the sawstop technology is. I still am super nervous around a table saw. I think for most people the fear is still there.

hmahncke 9y ago

name checks out.

MattGrommes 9y ago

For me, the safety stuff was a bonus to the fact that the Sawstop is a really great tablesaw. It was a huge upgrade in power, accuracy, and just fit-and-finish over my older less-safe saw.

Asooka 9y ago

Can't you just wear heavy gloves?

Freak_NL 9y ago
While gloves are useful in some cases (e.g., moving splintery and damaged lumber), with woodworking they actually significantly increase the risk of injury. You need the finesse and control of your hands when handling materials and tools, because gloves have a tendency to get caught in rotating machinery (e.g., drill press) and the decreased accuracy means you will be making mistakes in your movements. For this reason manufacturers tend to warn against the use of gloves in the user manual (while strongly recommending goggles, respirator, and ear protection).
asteli 9y ago
not sure if this is meant facetiously, but one tenet of shop safety is that you don't wear gloves when using tools that could snag and wrap your hand around them. drill presses, grinders, table saws.
- abakker 9y ago
  yep. Effectively no woodworking tools can be safely used with gloves. Gloves are fine for material handling, but not operating tools. Don't google image search for "power tool glove accident"
sjs382 9y ago
Absolutely not. Never wear gloves when operating spinning tools. If you're morbidly curious, do a Google image search for "degloving". [NSFW: Gore]

anthonybsd 9y ago

You sound exactly like my uncle who is opposed to all modern car safety measures (seatbelts, ABS breaks, lane departure, blind spot radar, etc.) on the grounds that he doesn't want to get complacent while driving.

luckydude 9y ago
Nah, I like all that stuff. It all helps make driving safer. The sawstop is sort of like making left hand turns safer but nothing else. That's weird to me, all the other stuff is still dangerous but this one thing is safer. That doesn't seem to be a win to me. Maybe it is to you, for me, I think it would make me less careful in the cases where I don't have protection.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

deelowe 9y ago

This is a weak argument. A better one is that the saw stop doesn't work for conductive materials including wet or pressure treated wood. For this reason they provide a bypass which turns the stop off. You can imagine how this plays out in a production environment where it's accidentally tripped a few times (hint: workers learn quickly about the bypass).

Rantenki 9y ago

>>But why not have an even safer tablesaw? Because I don't want to get complacent around one tool and have that feeling linger when I go use the next tool. They are all dangerous and all need to be treated with respect. Unless there is a way to make them all safe (there isn't), it doesn't make sense to me to have one safe one. This argument is very irresponsible. Disclosure: I am a happy saw-stop owner who also has a large collection of POTENTIALLY very dangerous tools (gas-welding, milling machines, routers both CNC and otherwise, metal forming, etc). First, every tool that is safer reduces your total risk. Saying that unless all tools are safe, none are, is nonsense. Second, I know somebody that got caught in a drill press, and I can say from experience that you are very lucky that you only lost some hair. I find it odd that you argue against safety measures in the same paragraph where you note how you took a risk that could literally have lobotomized you. Finally, safety measures aren't only about you. Does your wife ever use your tools? Is she OK with those risks? Do you have kids (I know a dude locally who got his hand into a planer when he was a _young_ child. He's surprisingly dextrous after being amputated around the first knuckle on every finger on his right hand). Not everybody understands the risks like you do, and it's hard for them to make an informed decisions when they learn to use those tools without some kind of industry guidance.

luckydude 9y ago
You have your point of view, I have mine. My wife and kids don't get to use my shop without me there, it's got way too many places to go bad. Irresponsible? Really? That seems like a crappy thing to say. How was it irresponsible?

oliwarner 9y ago

Curious you consider your bandsaw more dangerous. There's a lot less momentum, only one vector for injury and you generally have a lot more control over your stock. My table saw can fire a 2×4 across a room. So I don't agree with your assessment but your kit is obviously different to mine. I don't disagree with your wider point about respect, but even seasoned pros make genuine mistakes. A lapse in concentration or material behaving abnormally. That's all it takes and you've lost a finger. It would be great to see similar things implemented in other tools but for the moment, what's wrong with making sure new models are safer by default? I mentioned airbags in another comment and I think it's a good comparison. Why would you NOT want this? And yes, why isn't somebody doing the exact same thing in bandsaws and routers? The same premise would work with little adaptation.

luckydude 9y ago
I sometimes freehand stuff through my minimax bandsaw. Sometimes that's the only way to get the curve I want. I'm not very good at it, the master of that stuff is Sam Maloof, he's light years ahead of me. The thing that made freehanding remotely possible was getting a carbide tipped blade. The normal blades have set to each tooth, the carbide tipped blade has no set, the tips are slightly wider than the blade. What that does is make the blade way less "grabby". I tried freehanding with the old blades and it grabbed stuff out of my hands like crazy, just (short) matter of time before something would go wrong there. The carbide tip blade has almost zero unpredictable grab. All this probably makes me sound better than I am. I'm an ok woodworker. Some examples (from ~20 years ago) are here: http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/wood/ http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/wood/ - the bench is a pretty decent chunk of work. Other than the section over by the vice the top is flat and square to about 1/1000th of an inch. Hand flattened with planes. The "sounds better" point that I'm trying to make is about the whole freehand thing. I'm not Sam Maloof good, not remotely close. I just need to freehand once in a while and the minimax plus the carbide tipped blade made that possible.